Fight for Me
by haltedtacos
Summary: Her son is born with floppy dark hair and piercing blue eyes, pointed nose a sharp contrast to his father's and her own and she cannot help but think- -What did she do to deserve this? Or: A series one-shots, mostly concerning JD and Veronica.


Everything she touches crumbles to dust beneath her palms but stone does not turn to dust.

It only turns to smaller stone.

True to form, Veronica graduates top of her class and attends Harvard University in the fall.

She studiously avoids boys with floppy dark hair and piercing blue eyes.

She throws away all of her blue clothes, paints her nails the deepest purple she can find and deems herself 'Ronnie'. She dates only good boys, ones who wear button downs and bowties unironically.

She _relishes_ in boredom.

When school ends she gets a job doing something intelligent but altogether inconsequential. She dates, but does not love, and breaks up with any man who proposes playing croquet or getting slushies from nearby convenience stores or is in the slightest bit interesting.

She does not go home. Under any circumstances.

Despite her efforts to the contrary, she marries a lawyer. The wedding is white and she wears a stuffy dress crested with fake pearls. She hates every second of it, and enough of that putrid discontent bleeds into her smile that even her very inpet groom notices.

The cake falls over at the reception and she cannot help but think of it as fate.

Years pass without notice. Her smiles grows more stilted every fall. Still she continues, boring job, boring husband, and wet wednesday mornings forming the soundtrack of her life.

She has done her best to forget _him_ and all is going to plan until she gets pregnant.

Her son is born with floppy dark hair and piercing blue eyes, pointed nose a sharp contrast to his father's and her own and she cannot help but think-

-What did she do to deserve this?

Her husband is at a loss to his appearance, and brushes it off as the wonder of genetics. She can do naught but nod, not quite finding the words to express the utter shock that fills every empty crevice inside of her.

His similarity to _him_ grows as he does, and Veronica cannot help but wonder if it is possible for someone to be pregnant for the decade and a half between _his_ death and the birth of her child. Everything about him is a carbon copy of her high school boyfriend, from his elvish ears to the way he curls in on himself when he laughs.

She supposes this what she gets for wanting a boring existence.

Still, she is a good mother. She does not hold his appearance against him, nor does she tell him anything of the parasitic boy who once infected her heart. In turn he is a sweet boy, sensitive and caring and so, _so_ kind.

Sometimes, when copious amounts of red wine lower her inhibitions she wonders aloud if _he_ would have been the same had his mother not gone the way she did.

(She likes to think the answer is 'yes')

Copious amounts of red wine are good for several things and she falls pregnant again. This time around she prays day in and day out for a child with explainable features, one who will resemble their father or mother or an oft forgotten great aunt for goodness sakes, just no one who populated the tremulous time that made up her teenage years.

Whoever is up there must be having a good laugh because out comes a daughter with blonde hair and cold blue eyes, button nose twitching in something akin to disgust.

She wants to throw her hands up in despair.

Still she says nothing, loving the two despite the pain their little faces bring. They grow into sweet and sensitive people, kind and thoughtful and so unlike the people she once knew it takes her breath away. Whenever possible, she bestows them with the highest compliment she can think of.

"Beautiful."

Times marches on. Her husband dies in his sleep somewhere around seventy-five, (boring, she mutters under her breath at his funeral) and she retires without fanfare. Her children are unleashed on the world, bleeding hearts helping and loving and giving in a way she never has.

She breaks her rule and visits Ohio, finding herself in a little graveyard somewhere south of her old high school. She kneels beside two graves and reaches out to brush each of the names.

"I cleaned up your messes, you know." She whispers to the markers, gnarled hands patting the stone softly. "Regardless of what people remember about you, there are two people out there making the world a little more beautiful, just for you." Settling into the soft dirt she lies between the headstones. Humming a jaunty tune she floats to sleep, wizened eyes fluttering closed for the last time.

She is found hours later, curled up beside the graves of her children's namesakes, a content smile on her face for the first time in years. Her children indulge her final wishes and bury her where she died, clothed in all blue. Her maiden name is engraved upon her gravestone, and below it is inscribed a single word in weaving script.

' _Beautiful'_

Fate may be a cruel mistress but it allowed her two respites in her life. Ill-packaged they may have been, she thinks maybe the chance to raise them in beauty was one she would have suffered through a thousand Wednesday mornings to have.


End file.
